Quick Questions, Short Answers - No Debate

The 300-post limit needs to be explained periodically. The original software used by this board would become very unreliable when a thread grew longer than around 300-400 posts. When this happened posts would be lost, and sometimes even entire threads, so we imposed the 300 post limit. It was then discovered that the limit was actually a benefit, as it imposed an endpoint on what would otherwise be an unending discussion. Sequel threads were and are common, but they provide an opportunity to refocus on the essential issues, or to modify the focus to what had been discovered to be the essential issues during discussion.The new software has no such limitation, but we continue to find the 300-post limit very useful. Later this year the message database will be moving into MySQL, which should provide even greater reliability, as well as make possible the implementation of many new features. One feature would be setting the post limit of threads, and another would provide automatic notices as a thread approaches the limit.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

dBoard 2.0, the current installed version, uses MySQL for the member database. dBoard 3.0 will use MySQL for the message database, too. I already have most of the software written and debugged, but I need a large block of free time (weeks) to complete it and then release it.Yes, the limit should be in the FAQ.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

The Jesus/Bastard exchanges shouldn't turn into a discussion in this thread.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Only moderators can initiate threads in [forum=-15].Anyone may initiate a thread in [forum=-14]. No thread proposal is needed or desired.At the top of the table listing the topics for any forum is a list of the constraints for that forum. For this thread, [forum=-19], it's this:

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

See Message 275.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Replies to questions raised in this thread should be from people who know the answer or can at least offer informed insights. This isn't the right thread for introducing opinions for discussion.Please, no replies to this message.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

F&L is correct, it's on the todo list, but you are correct, too, we did used to have chat. It was provided by third party software. Initially it was free, then $10/year, then $25/year, then $75/year. At the last price hike I disabled the feature, and I don't know what the price is now.But because I want to take this discussion board software commercial I couldn't continue to use 3rd party software anyway. We have to have our own native chat facility, and it is on the todo list, but the programming department is a bit shorthanded and there is no schedule at present.

Structuring database tables and formulating efficient queries with the current structure of a single reply-to and multiple replies is already very challenging. Multiple reply-to's and CC's would sort of be the concrete slab that broke the camel's back.

It didn't receive much attention at the time, but a few months ago the member rating formula was greatly simplified after some discussions with Nwr. It works like this:

• Only messages from the last 90 days are used to calculate member ratings.
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• All cheers and jeers for a member are summed. A cheer is plus one, a jeer is minus one.
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• The sum of all cheers and jeers is divided over the member's total number of messages for the past 90 days, giving his raw rating.
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• The raw ratings across all members are normalized into the range 1 to 10, with 1 lowest and 10 highest. The results are the ratings you see.

Because the total number of messages is in the denominator, the new scheme penalizes those who post lots of messages that receive no votes but whose raw rating is positive. It of course benefits those whose raw rating is negative, but those with low ratings tend to post messages that receive some voting attention.When I made the rating change Crash commented that he was surprised that my Percy rating isn't pegged at 10, so I made a little code change that only he can see, but he hasn't noticed yet.The ability to view your messages that have received votes will be implemented at the same time as the automated post of the month system. It's high on my list of things to do, but I'm currently working on converting over to a templating system.The templating system will allow webmaster customizations and multi-language capability (not including message content, of course). I'll be needing volunteer translators soon, I've already got Spanish covered. It's a small amount of translation work, maybe 2000 words total. Example phrase: "Click to view first unread message."

I would like this too, and it is on my todo list.About just the last part, it's already sorted by the date/time of the member's last message in the thread - do you mean the date/time when the thread was started?

The way I see it, at any venue like EvC Forum there are multiple influences pulling people in different directions, and complicating matters, no one influence affects everyone the same way. For example, what some see as a discouraging factor others might see as motivational.In other words, it's not simple. You have a good point, but there are also good counter arguments.Perhaps your best argument is that the only reason EvC Forum has a rating system is because I think it is a necessary feature for a discussion board product. Can't argue with you there.Anyway, on my todo list is the ability for individuals to enable/disable the rating system for themselves personally, assuming the webmaster has turned the rating system on. I'm not sure at this point what disabling the system for oneself personally would mean. Would it mean that they couldn't see any rating-related information? Or would it mean not only that, but also that other people couldn't rate their messages or see their member rating?

I like these ideas. I'll keep them in mind when I think about changes the next time I remodel the rating system.

Yeah, neat idea, and probably not too difficult as long as it's okay if it ignores subsequent edits to the original message. There will be improvements to the rating system over time, but I'm working on something else right now.Edited by Admin, : Remove sig.

About the post of the day/week/month, that's exactly my intention, and also year and decade. No schedule at this time.About the "no negative ratings", removing that can be done in an instant through the control panel, but it would make detecting problems more difficult since if I make a change that broke negative ratings I might not find it. Sorry.

Actually it will end up referring to the wrong message. What he wants to say is [msg=252], not [mid=252]. [msg] takes the message number, while [mid] takes the message ID, which is the gray number at the top of the message next to "Message x of y"..Message numbers are unique in a thread and are assigned in sequence beginning at 1 at the beginning of the thread. Once assigned message numbers do not change. This means that deleting message 10 doesn't cause message 11 to become message 10. Message 11 will always be message 11, no matter how many earlier messages are deleted.Message IDs are unique across the whole forum, beginning at 1 and extending into the six hundred thousands.